Weeping for the res publica Tears in Roman political culture Vekselius, Johan

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Weeping for the res publica Tears in Roman political culture Vekselius, Johan

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johan vekseliusWeeping for the res publica – Tears in Roman political culture 20

Lund University The Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology Department of Archaeology and Ancient History

Weeping for the res publica

Tears in Roman political culture

johan vekselius

department of archaeology and ancient history | lund university

473776Printed by Media-Tryck, Lund 2018 NORDIC SWAN ECOLABEL 3041 0903

Weeping for the res publica

Why is Julius Caesar said to have wept in front of his soldiers after crossing the Rubicon, and Scipio Aemilianus as he beheld the destruction of Carthage? How should we understand the criticism leveled against the emperor Tiberius’ refusal to weep after the death of Germanicus? Why was the Roman law court flooded with tears? What was the significance of Pliny the Younger’s praise of Trajan’s tears? And why could elite Romans be praised for their excessive tears by Statius and criticized for similar tears by Seneca? In his doctoral thesis, Johan Vekselius engages with these cases and many more in pursuit of the function and meaning of tears in the political culture of ancient Rome during the Republic and Early Empire.

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Weeping for the res publica

Tears in Roman political culture

Johan Vekselius

DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

by due permission of the Faculty of Humanities, Lund University, Sweden.

To be defended at LUX:C121, Helgonavägen 3, Lund.

4^TH of May 2018 at 10.15.

Faculty opponent

Prof. Anthony Corbeill, University of Virginia, USA

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Organization:

The Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology, Lund University.

Dep. of Archaeology and Ancient History

Document name:

Weeping for the res publica. Tears in Roman political culture

Author(s) Johan Vekselius Sponsoring organization Title and subtitle: Weeping for the res publica. Tears in Roman political culture Abstract:

This study explores the significance of tears and weeping in the political culture of ancient Rome during the Late Republic and Early Empire. Using a “dramaturgical metaphor,” it investigates the representation of weeping in different literary genres. The thesis stresses the theatricality that characterized Roman public life. Romans assumed roles associated with different weeping behaviors. One conclusion is that there was no universal script for Roman tears. Instead, the study demonstrates that the function and meaning of tears varied according to historical context. Such contexts include mourning, the law court, and the exercise and expression of power in various political settings. The study also argues the importance of genre and author for the representation of emotions and tears.

The study argues the existence of two paradigms for weeping: one appreciative of weeping, the other valuing self-control.

The two paradigms are found in different genres and represented options for historical behaviors. Tears articulated the importance of the family and social virtues such as pietas, fides, clementia, and civilitas. Conversely, by not weeping a Roman could convey virtus, gravitas, and maiestas. A mourning elite Roman faced a tradeoff. He needed to show that he could cope with the proper self-control, which was a mark of the dominant group. At the same time, a Roman should convey that he was he was a man of feeling by weeping. The study also considers the question of the change over time and argues that both self-control and extrovert weeping were available as responses to the autocracy of the Empire. Tears of mourning could be used politically to incite the crowd emotionally against opponents. This subversive potential of tears led them at times to be prohibited.

The Roman law court was lachrymose. The rhetorical manuals recommended tears and orators wept without much censure. Romans shed tears in the law court aiming to elicit misericordia and to invoke clementia. Literature represents high-status Romans such as emperors, generals, senators, and magistrates as weeping in front of their followers when their authority was questioned, assumed, or rejected. Such tears sought to establish consensus and fides between groups of different status.

Several famous Roman generals followed a Greek literary motif and wept at the moment of victory for a variety of reasons:

the ephemeral nature of victory and everything human, the fickleness of fortune, dire forebodings for himself and Rome, the piteous state of the fallen, and perhaps joy.

Tears’ problematic relationship with sincerity is also explored. Tears not only express emotions but also communicate emotional sincerity—even as they might be taken as being insincere. To be understood as sincere a Roman needed to weep intensely, something that increased the stakes and his humiliation if he was understood as being insincere. Literature depicts “bad emperors” as feigning tears or forcing their subjects to weep or hide their emotions. This can be read as a literary characterization of a broken political culture. A good emperor, meanwhile, showed concern for his subjects by tears and wept with them and allowed them to shed tears freely. The study argues that the need to adjust faces and weeping according to the autocrat’s sentiments could well reflect historical realities. The appropriateness of tears depended on a complex interplay between contexts, gender, and status. In general, weeping for family, friends, and the res publica was called for.

Key words: ANCIENT ROME, POLITICAL CULTURE, EMPIRE, EMPEROR, IMPERIAL, REPUBLIC, TEARS, WEEPING, MOURNING, PITY, DIPLOMACY, VIRTUS, PIETAS, FIDES, CLEMENTIA, EMOTIONS, HISTORY, HISTORIOGRAPHY, ORATORY, RHETORIC , LATIN, CICERO, SENECA, TACITUS, LIVY Classification system and/or index terms (if any)

Supplementary bibliographical information Language ENGLISH

ISSN and key title ISBN: 978-91-88473-77-6 (print)

978-91-88473-78-3 (electronic)

Recipient’s notes Number of pages: 237 Price

Security classification

I, the undersigned, being the copyright owner of the abstract of the above-mentioned dissertation, hereby grant to all reference sources permission to publish and disseminate the abstract of the above-mentioned dissertation.

Signature Date 2018-03-23

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Weeping for the res publica

Tears in Roman political culture

Johan Vekselius

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Coverphoto La Mort de Germanicus, Nicolas Poussin

Copyright Johan Vekselius

The Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology, Lund University Department of Archaeology and Ancient History

ISBN 978-91-88473-77-6 (print), 978-91-88473-78-3 (electronic) Printed in Sweden by Media-Tryck, Lund University

Lund 2018

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Acknowledgements

Writing a doctoral thesis in humanities is rightly regarded as a lone-wolf project, if not to say a lifestyle. However, a Ph.D. in humanities also represents a tremendous collaborative team effort, involving a high number of individuals and institutions. I use this opportunity to express my gratitude toward those who have helped me. It is impossible to enumerate every contribution, so I apologize beforehand to those I might have forgotten.

I had the stimulating experience of having Prof. Anne-Marie Leander-Touati as my principal supervisor. Anne-Marie’s ability to think outside the box coupled with strong demands on logical consistency challenged me to develop both my thinking and the project. Furthermore, I want to highlight the many efforts she took on my behalf in dealing with matters like drafting grant applications and writing letters of recommendation. Doc. Ida Östenberg, my vice supervisor, contributed with guidance on general concerns as well as with her keen eye for detail. The fact that we are in many ways similar in our thinking, but with significant differences, proved fruitful. In their different ways, both my supervisors are inspiring role-models. I am especially grateful for their support at times when I experienced the mutability of fortune.

Doc. Henrik Gerding and Doc. Dominic Ingemark have been positive influences throughout my time in Lund: during lunches in the town-center, as trusted and valuable contributors in the seminar, and not least, as mentors in things related to life in academia. I owe great gratitude to Dr. Fredrik Tobin who as a longtime and loyal friend has read and constructively commented on too many versions of chapters, over too many years, over too many beers. I am very thankful that Doc.

Erik Bohlin helped me with the Latin and Greek in some tricky text passages.

Dr. Isak Hammar was a thorough and thoughtful opponent at my end seminar.

Hammar’s critique significantly improved my text and thinking on various matters. Hampus Olsson’s reactionary presence made Lund a better place, albeit my neighbors, who might have failed to appreciate his vast knowledge of the Beatles, might disagree. I want to thank Hampus for reading parts of my thesis. I want to recognize Dr. Patrik Klingborg for his energy and ambition, which has

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been both frightening and inspiring, and for reading a couple of chapters of my thesis. I am grateful to Dott.ssa Liv D’Amelio for proofreading the bibliography.

I want to thank the members of the seminar of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology in Lund for the feedback it is has given my texts over the years, as well for their passion for the Classical world in general; in addition to those mentioned elsewhere: Prof. Örjan Wikander, Dr. Renée Forsell, Dr. Thomas Staub, Dr. Lovisa Brännstedt, Fanny Kärfve, Anna-Stina Ekedahl, Valentina Vassallo, Peder Flemestad, and Danilo Marco Campanaro. The Lund seminar has strengthened my belief that the seminar is an invaluable tradition and institution that we must maintain and develop in the future. I have also presented parts of my work before the seminars of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at Uppsala and Stockholm, as well as that of History of Ideas and Sciences at Lund University; all provided useful feedback and steered my thinking to areas outside my box.

I want to thank the members, former and current, of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Lund University for providing me with a friendly work-place. Helene Wilhelmson was a particularly excellent colleague, who introduced me to knitting of all things. I want to thank Sian Anthony for her trademarked dry English humor while being a good officemate. From my

“alma mater,” Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Gothenburg, I want to thank Agneta Strömberg and Ingela Wiman for introducing me to the magic kingdom that is the Ancient world. I am also grateful to Lena Larsson Lovén for inviting me to be part of her project about the ancient family.

“The AW-crew” at Lund–Dr. Jesper Blid, Hampus, Ingrid Wållgren, Johan Åhlfeldt, Dr. Per Östborn, et al–helped to make the world a better place by solving many of its most pressing problems in a constructive atmosphere during our sessions. I also want to thank Nina Mårtensson and Mi Lennhag for being good friends during my time in Lund.

The project greatly benefited from my many stays at the Swedish Institute in Rome. I want to thank the direction and staff of the Institute for always being kind and helpful, among them particularly: Prof. Dir. Barbro Santillo Frizell, Dr.

Dir. Kristian Göransson, Dott.ssa Stefania Renzetti, Dott.ssa Astrid Capoferro, Dott.ssa Liv D’Amelio, and Fanny Lind. I must also recognize Prof. Ignazio Tantillo, not only for kindly inviting me to hold a seminar at the Dipartimento di Scienze Umane, Sociali e della Salute, Università degli studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, but also for his hospitality in Rome. Always calm and

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levelheaded, Prof. Eva Rystedt was a positive presence for me throughout this project, both in Rome and in Sweden.

This project was made possible by generous grants from several foundations and institutions: Stiftelsen Fil. dr. Uno Otterstedts fond, Stiftelsen Harald och Tonny Hagendahls minnesfond, Stiftelsen Gihls fond, Stiftelsen Enboms donationsfond, and the Swedish Institute in Rome.

I am grateful to my longtime friends in Gothenburg, in particular Andreas Björkman and Andreas Wallmark, for their camaraderie over the years.

I thank Hanna Edsbagge for her encouragement and understanding. Despite being a hardworking librarian, she is in a relationship with a man who somehow spends more time than her in libraries.

I am grateful for the support of my brother Henrik whose clearheaded view of life acts as an exemplum. Finally, and most significantly, I dedicate this book optimis parentibus, to the best of parents, Juhani and Margareta Vekselius, who have always been my greatest supporters.

Johan Vekselius, March 2018.

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Chapter 1.

Approaching Roman Tears

Introduction

Aims and the Object of Study

Why is Julius Caesar said to have wept in front of his soldiers after crossing the Rubicon, and Scipio Aemilianus as he beheld the destruction of Carthage? How should we understand the criticism leveled against Tiberius’ refusal to weep after the death of his nephew (and adopted son) Germanicus? Why was the Roman law court flooded with tears? What was the significance of Pliny the Younger’s praise of Trajan’s tears? And why could grandees be praised for their excessive tears by Statius and be criticized for similar tears by Seneca?

This study engages with these cases and many more in pursuit of the meanings and outcomes of tears in Roman political culture during the Republic and Early Empire. This ambition raises several questions. What did tears communicate?

Which social practices, emotions, values, and virtues was crying associated with, and why? Moreover, which political outcomes did weeping effect? To this end, the study must inquire into when, where, how, why, and to what effect Romans shed tears. The study’s aim is to argue tears’ political significance by demonstrating how crying mattered in the political sphere, but also conversely, how the political sphere was significant for the shedding of tears. To be more specific, this study aims to cast further light on and define the “performative side”

of Roman political culture, in contrast to the legal and formalistic side, by demonstrating how weeping interacted with status, identity, values, virtues, mentalities, and practices to bring about political outcomes. Furthermore, the study aims to demonstrate how the meanings, outcomes, and reception of tears varied both according to the historical and literary context as well as over time.¹

1 Ebersole 2000 underlines the complexity that must be accounted for in the study of tears.

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The study covers a time period from the Middle Republic to the Early Empire.

This period spans roughly 200 BC to AD 200 and allows us to assess the question of historical change and how the significance of tears might have changed with the political system. What will be in focus here is the political culture of the city of Rome and its elites, and relevant sources will include literary works from all genres that can elucidate Roman tears.² Such sources will be both Latin and Greek: not only were many of the works that narrate Roman history written in Greek, but the Roman elite itself was bilingual and versed in both literary cultures, with Greek literary genres and models significantly affecting the development of Latin literature.

Tears in Literature and History

Whose attitudes and practices are reflected when we read about tears in ancient literature?³ The historical subject’s or the author’s? An event represented in a text is relayed through the double “filter” of the author and the literary genre. This circumstance makes it difficult to determine if perceived differences between historical events are indications of diachronic change, or if we are to understand them as functions of author and genre, or if similarities between historical events in texts by different authors are due to literary conventions hiding differences.

Taken together, this calls for a systematic and comprehensive approach.

Whenever possible, we need to study both similar and different types of weeping events in different genres and in texts by different writers, as well as similar and different types of crying episodes in the same genre and in texts by the same writer.

Thus, we can understand the “distorting lenses” by controlling for tendencies both in the historical context and in different genres and literary careers.

It is not on the level of individual instances that this study claims validity. It is futile to try to establish if someone did weep at a given occasion some two thousand years ago. There are no criteria by which to determine what is historical

“reality” and what is literary fiction or to decide the relation between reality and

2 Cf. Beard 2014, 85–95, for a discussion about what is Roman and Greek in her study of Roman laughter.

3 Sanders 2012a provides a useful discussion on the potential and problems with using literature in the study of emotions in ancient Greece. For a general introduction to the methodology for the study of emotions in ancient history, see Chaniotis 2012b; Chaniotis & Ducrey 2013b;

Cairns & Nelis 2017b; concerning epigraphy, see Chaniotis 2012c; for archaeology see, Masséglia 2012. On methodological problems in the study of Roman tears, see now Hagen 2017, 55–65.

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representation in individual instances of tears.⁴ However, if the same types of tears can be found in different time periods and among different writers, and are shed by different historical actors, the argument can be made that we are dealing with a cultural pattern. Consequently, this study works with the premise that we can gainfully investigate types of weeping. In a given situation, there was a logic (or competing logics) that determined the appropriateness of tears and that we can analyze.

The Terminology of Tears

If we are to understand Roman tears, we need understand the terms the Latin and Greek authors themselves used.⁵ To start with, we can make a distinction between crying on the one hand and tears on the other. The former is a complex psychosomatic behavior that involves facial and bodily movements, sounds like sobbing and sighs, and changed breathing.⁶ The latter, tears, are drops of fluid that one typically sheds when weeping, though tears can be shed without being understood as crying.

The vocabulary of tears and weeping is rather limited. Lacrima/lacrimare (“a tear/to shed tears”) and flere (“to weep, cry”) in Latin, and δάκρυον/δακρύω (“a tear/to shed tears”) and κλαίω (“to weep/cry”) in Greek, together with their cognates and derivatives, account for most occurrences of tears and weeping. Less frequent in Latin is plorare (“to cry and weep,” often with a sense that the crying is loud). A complication is that Greek and Latin use these terms in a transitive sense as well, that is, “to lament/bewail/weep/shed tears for something or somebody.”⁷ In such instances, it might be difficult to ascertain if we should imagine that tears were shed or not. Tears of joy are typically rendered by the lacrim-/δάκρυ stems because flere/κλαίω/plorare are expressions of grief with a sense of voiced complaint and bitterness, and tend to be inappropriate for tears of

4 Cf. de Libero 2009; Hagen 2017, 59.

5 For a discussion of the problems with terminology in the context of Roman laughter, see Beard 2014, chap. 4. For the terminology of Greek laughter, see Halliwell 2008, 520–529, and on Greek and Roman anger, see Harris 2001, chap. 3. See Panagl 2009, for an overview of the vocabulary of tears and weeping (as well of smile and laughter) in the Indo-European languages.

6 See Kappas 2009, 422–423; Vingerhoets, Bylsma & Rottenberg 2009, 439, for English definitions of tears and weeping.

7 Cf. Hall 2014, 107–109.

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joy.⁸ The terms for weeping and tears are often used interchangeably by ancient authors for stylistic variation, which is why it is not worthwhile to further pursue terminological distinctions.

This study focuses on tears and weeping, which is why grief in general, ritual grief, mourning, and lamentation are of secondary significance, something that also holds true for terms that express such concepts. In Latin, such terms include plangere, plangor, planctus, lugere, luctus, queror, lamentatio, lamenta, gemitus, gemo, and squalor, and corresponding terms in Greek are πενθέω, πένθος, γοάω, γόος, θρηνέω, θρῆνος, ὀδύρομαι, κωκύω, and κόπτομαι. Such terms tend to refer to more general expressions of pain and grief or to ritual lamentation as part of mourning and funeral rituals.⁹ These terms tend to be more “ritual”

than “emotional,”¹⁰ and do not directly refer to tears, even though they might imply tears. Even if the ambition of this study is to concentrate on the tears rather than on grief and mourning, it will sometimes prove impossible to untangle tears from descriptions of mourning, grief, and pity. Tears can be used as metonyms for emotions,¹¹ whereas intense mourning and sorrow may implicate tears even though they are not explicitly mentioned.¹² Programmatic statements cannot solve such conundrums. Only by close-reading texts can we establish what kind of behavior they are likely to refer to. Another way of addressing this problem is to work mainly with texts that explicitly mention tears.

8 Stated by Panagl 2009, 530, concerning Latin, but which holds true for Greek as well.

9 On the terminology (and its development) of Greek lamentation and tears, see Alexiou 1974;

Arnould 1990, 143–153; Derderian 2001; Suter 2009, 60–61; Hagen 2017, 64–65.

10 A stance adopted by Lateiner 2009a; de Libero 2009; Suter 2009. Cf. Ebersole 2000, 213–215.

11 On emotional expressions as metonyms, see Cairns 2013; 2017, 56–58; Cairns & Nelis 2017b, 15–17. The terms “emotion” and “feeling” are used interchangeably in this study. There is no scholarly consensus of the definitions of the terms and how they relate to each other, see Rosenwein 2016, 7–8. Cf. Eckert 2016, following Scherer 2005, who contends the importance of making a distinction between the terms.

12 On “implicit emotions,” see Sternberg 2005b; Sanders 2012a, 160–161; 2012b; 2016a, 17;

Rubinstein 2013.

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Roman Political Culture

The Roman Republic

The following will outline the significant characteristics of the political culture of both the Republic and Imperial Rome as a background. An office-holding aristocracy dominated the Roman Republic, whose members populated the Senate, and from which civil, religious, and military office holders were drawn.¹³ Formal sovereignty may have rested with the populus who legislated in assemblies and who elected magistrates and thus bestowed membership and honors on the Senate.¹⁴ There has been considerable debate about the extent of “popular power”

and democracy in the Republic.¹⁵ Without taking a firm position in this debate, it is evident that the social, religious, political, military, and economic spheres—

in short, the political and civic structures and the affairs that constituted the res publica—were in the power of the office-holding aristocracy, who were the only ones that could act and speak as individuals in the political sphere.¹⁶

Scholarship on the political culture of the Republic has emphasized its

“performative” side, in contrast to its formalistic side.¹⁷ Status and power had to be performed in front of audiences to acquire meaning. Rituals and ceremonies persuaded audiences, achieved and articulated consensus and conflict, enacted status, and brought about political outcomes. The elite performed in front of audiences when they deliberated with their peers in the Senate, convened and spoke before a crowd in a contio, performed religious rituals as priests, or pleaded in the law court. It was as an orator the elite Roman addressed his fellow Romans,

13 For the character of the Roman Republic, perceptive discussions with broad overviews over the vast scholarship on the subject can be found in Meier 1980; Jehne 2006; Hölkeskamp 2010;

2017. Flower 2010 offers a thought-provoking reading of the essence of the Roman Republic by way of a new periodization.

14 On the Republican “constitution,” see Lintott 1999; North 2006; Mouritsen 2010.

15 See Hodgson 2017, for a monograph on the res publica as a concept during the Late Republic and Early Empire.

16 Millar 1984; 1986; 1989; 1995; 1998; 2002, and Wiseman 1994; 1995; 1998; 2008; 2009, have put forth arguments for the formal and practical power of the plebs. For the competing and more traditional view that underlines the power of the office-holding aristocracy, see North 1990a; 1990b; Harris 1990; Jehne 1995; 2006; Yacobsen 1999; 2004; 2006;

Hölkeskamp 2000b; 2004a; 2004b; 2010; 2017; Flaig 2003a; Mouritsen 2001; 2010;

Morstein–Marx 2004; 2013.

17 On spectacles, see for example Marshall 1984; Flower 2004; Hölkeskamp 2011; 2017, chap. 6–

7.

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and the spoken word, and consequently oratory and rhetoric, was of great significance.¹⁸ Acknowledging the significance of eloquence, we must remember that gesture, dress, and manners—such as walking—were significant communicative acts in Roman culture.¹⁹

Spectacles functioned as communication within the elite and between the elite and the crowd. Performances communicated values and virtues both within the Roman power system and to society as a whole. Such performances fostered communal cohesiveness and consensus through the participation of the elite and the crowd.²⁰ Consensus was critical for social cohesion in and between groups, such as the Senate, the equites, the plebs, the soldiers, and later the emperor and his family. A consensus for a Roman statesman and his propagated cause lent him dignitas and auctoritas. Consensus provided both a means and an aim to persuade and to achieve political results. A crowd needed the ordered participation of different status and age groups in Roman society to represent a “proper”

consensus.²¹ Predictably, the political value of consensus made it contested goods.

The significance of consensus often entailed conflict about which persons and interests it should include. An orator’s aim was to build a consensus around his own person and interests and relate it to communal values so that only deviant outcasts could be represented to be outside it.²²

The crowd was an important political factor during both the Republic and the Empire. Roman (and Greek) authors used a range of words like populus, plebs, multitudo, turba, and vulgus for terms such as the people, multitude, crowd, and

18 The importance of oratory during the Republic has been the subject of many recent studies. The edited volume of Steel & van der Blom 2013 offers diverse perspectives (and an extensive bibliography), while highlighting the significance of speech and oratory in Late Republican Rome. More specifically, see Hölkeskamp 1995; 2004a, chap. 8; 2013; 2017; David 2006;

Bell 2013; Jehne 2013; Steel 2013a; 2013b; Vasaly 2013. Closely related to the importance of oratory, the contio and its relationship to popular power has been the subject of scholarly attention, see Pina Polo 1996; 2013; Mouritsen 2001; 2010; 2013; Morstein-Marx 2004;

2013; Yacobsen 2004; Sumi 2005; Bücher 2006, 29–34; Flower 2013; Russell 2013; Tan 2013; Hölkeskamp 2017, chap. 6.

19 On gesture in ancient Rome, see Aldrete 1999; Corbeill 2004. On walking in Roman culture, see Corbeill 2004, chap. 4; O’Sullivan 2011; Östenberg 2015.

20 The importance of consensus is well established, see for example Hellegouarc’h 1963, 121–127, 358–360; Lind 1986, 67–73; Griffin 1991; Hölkeskamp 1993; 2004a; 2004b, chap. 1; 2010;

2011; 2013; 2017, chap. 6; Jehne 1995; 2000; Flaig 1995; 2003a; Morstein-Marx 2004;

2013; Sumi 2005; Stem 2006; Kaster 2009.

21 Morstein-Marx 2004; Sumi 2005, 16–46, 264; 2011; Kaster 2009; Östenberg 2015, 18, 20–22.

22 The dangers of being outside a consensus is made clear by Corbeill 1996; Flaig 2003a; Kaster 2009. Hammar 2013 demonstrates how Roman orators cast their opponents as deviant violators of Roman norms.

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the mob. These terms had more or less positive or negative connotations. Ancient authors are inconsistent in their usage of the terms, sometimes for stylistic reasons, at times to indicate a value judgment, and occasionally to make distinctions regarding the composition of a crowd.²³ When translating these words, this study most often preserves the sense used by ancient authors, otherwise using the

“crowd” or “audience.” Although it is almost impossible to determine the composition of different crowds, the terms typically refer to non-elite Romans, even though elite Romans might be members of a crowd. Furthermore, a characteristic of crowds is that their members are nameless and anonymous.²⁴ In practice, a common tactic was for the orator to define his crowd as large and constituted by the genuine populus Romanus in its stratified subdivisions (magistrates, senators, equites, plebs, etc.) while the opponent’s crowd was denounced as a small and illegitimate mob made up by a random rabble of hired slaves, brigands, and gladiators.²⁵

The Empire

The establishment of the Principate meant both continuity and change.²⁶ The emperor took control over the res publica and wielded an authority that ultimately rested on his military and economic power. The Senate and other Republican institutions lived on and granted status and hierarchy to the elite and the emperor.

Senators still served as civic magistrates and as officers in the army. The plebs might have lost their legislative and elective functions but still legitimized the emperor by acclaiming him.²⁷

Three groups stand out as politically significant in relation to the emperor: the plebs in Rome, the army (in particular the praetorians), and the Senate.²⁸ Consensus between the emperor and these groups was of crucial importance. The emperor needed to display a degree of respect and affection for them, although the various groups had different and sometimes conflicting demands on their

23 Hellegouarc’h 1963, 506–518; Yavetz 1969a, 7–8, 141–155; Vanderbroeck 1987, chap. 2;

Aldrete 1999, 85–86; Tatum 1999; Hammar 2015, 82.

24 Hammar 2015, 84.

25 Concisely put by Russell 2016b, 188–190, who refers to the longer discussions of Hölkeskamp 1995 (= 2004, chap. 8); 2013; Morstein-Marx 2004, chap. 4.

26 See Winterling 2009, for a theoretical model of the transition from Republic to Empire.

27 Aldrete 1999, 132–133, 147–159, discusses the legitimization of emperors by acclamation.

28 The importance of these three groups is argued by Flaig 1992 (condensed in case-studies in 2003b; 2010). See also Veyne 1990, chap. 4; Griffin 1991; Aldrete 1999, 149–156.

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emperor and competed against each other for his affection:²⁹ the soldiers wanted a competent general who affirmed their prestige in the political system;³⁰ the urban plebs wanted a good “father” with a sense of justice, who cared for and loved them as he was present in Rome among them and shared their joys and sorrows;³¹ and finally, the Senate wanted to be honored and consulted as the senior institution, and that the emperor displayed that he was not (too) aloof to his senatorial peers.³² The emperor himself wanted to be loved by his subjects, to use the words of Paul Veyne, and he needed the acceptance of these groups to survive, as evidenced by the high ratio of murdered emperors.³³ To face all these different expectations together with the inherent ambiguities of his multiple roles put a tremendous and sometimes outright maddening pressure on the emperor’s person.³⁴

A facade of Republican institutions cloaked the emperor’s power base, namely, his control over the military and financial resources.³⁵ The Senate enjoyed status and power even as it disempowered itself by affirming the dominance of the emperor.

These relationships created a gap between a veil of Republican ideology and the realities of power in a military monarchy. The Imperial court and its ceremonies subsumed Republican institutions.³⁶ A consequence of this was ambiguous communication between emperor and subjects, most importantly between the emperor and his Senate.³⁷ Simplified, it can be said that the emperor acted as if the Republic lived on while latently wielding power, while the Senate and other

29 Yavetz 1969a, 114–116, 139; Veyne 1990, chap. 4 (esp. 398, 406, 414–416); Flaig 1992;

Goddard 1994.

30 Veyne 1990, 334–343; Flaig 1992, 132–207, 451–519; Goddard 1994.

31 Yavetz 1969a; Veyne 1990, 398–403, 414–416; Griffin 1991; Flaig 1992, 38–93; Goddard 1994.

32 Veyne 1990, chap. 4 (esp. 356–358, 403–414); Flaig 1992, 94–131. Cf. Rudich 1993; 1997.

On the Imperial Senate, see Talbert 1984.

33 Veyne 1990, 398, 406, 414–416. Flaig 1992 has argued that the emperor’s position is better understood in terms of acceptance rather than legitimacy. On the emperor’s lack of legitimacy and need of acceptance, see also Winterling 2009, chap. 5–6.

34 Small wonder that emperors lost their minds and went (or at least seemed) crazy. Veyne 1990, 409–413, discusses emperors’ madness from a “sociological” perspective. Yavetz 1996 discusses Gaius’ “Imperial madness” in ancient and modern historiography. Winterling 2009, chap. 6, contextualizes the madness of Gaius (also a recurring topic in Winterling’s biography (2011) of that emperor). Sidwell 2010 surveys previous scholarship and concludes that the search for the

“mad” Gaius is futile.

35 Winterling 2009 offers a theoretical perspective on the “double-nature” of the Principate.

36 Sumi 2005, chap. 9; 2011. Cf. Winterling 1997; 2009, chap. 5.

37 Winterling 2009, 111–113, 115, 158.

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Republican institutions acted as if the Republic lived on while obeying the emperor. These mentalities and practices were labeled dissimulatio. The problem for the aristocracy was to figure out the emperor’s “real” will, and for the emperor to discover the real, rather than the acted, acceptance of his rule.³⁸ It follows with dissimulatio that emotions, thoughts, and sentiments were hidden and pretended so as not to expose the realities of an autocrat and a subjected traditional elite.³⁹

Virtues and Values

The Roman political system lacked clear performance criteria, like unemployment numbers, GDP growth, and crime rates, by which to evaluate whether magistrates and emperors were good or bad at their jobs. This lack of unambiguous performance criteria is one reason form and manner mattered more than deed and substance—or in the words of Zvi Yavetz, the quomodo was more important than the quod.⁴⁰ To take the most obvious example, the emperor expressed and claimed authority by displaying superiority in virtue relative to the significant groups.

Given that tears formed part of the communication in the political system, we should expect that tears should translate into virtues, with virtue here understood as a desirable moral and ethical quality.⁴¹ We shall soon see that virtues could be emotional in the manner they were expressed, described, and experienced.

Another consequence of the importance of form and manner in Roman political culture was the elite’s adaptation of a communicative style that served to “ritually”

reduce or hide differences of status. This manner has in scholarship been termed levitas popularis, joviality, comes/comitas, and civilitas.⁴² During the Republic, this

38 Winterling 2009, 112.

39 On the literary and behavioral consequences of the ambiguousness of the Principate and its relationship to dissimulatio, see Rudich 1993; 1997; 2015; Bartsch 1994; 2012; O’Gorman 2000, 78–96; Roller 2001; Corbeill 2004, chap. 5; Winterling 2009 (esp. 111–113).

40 Yavetz 1969a, 101, 105–106, 109, 111, n. 2; 1983, 213. For the evaluation of the emperor by virtues rather than by concrete performance criteria, see Wallace-Hadrill 1983, 149–151. The display of the emperor is a topic in Veyne 1990, chap. 4. On the emperor’s use of coins to communicate virtues, see Noreña 2001.

41 Cf. Krasser 2009; Hagen 2017, chap. 5.

42 Jehne 2000, 214–217, uses joviality (Jovialität in German) but also considers comes/comitas (Bücher 2006, 45–46, also employs joviality). Yavetz 1965; 1969a, 51–53, passim; 1969b, 560;

Manning 1975 use the term levitas (popularis). On Imperial civilitas, see Wallace-Hadrill 1982;

1983, 162–166. On comes, see Griffin 1991, 37; Goddard 1994; Santoro L’Hoir 2006, 133–

136. Civilitas might be best known as an Imperial virtue, while joviality and levitas popularis are more Republican concepts. Be that as it may, I will not use different terms for different periods for what is analytically more or less the same phenomenon. I opt for civilitas since it

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manner meant that the office-holding aristocracy displayed respect and deference toward the people while maintaining a difference of status. During the Empire, this leveling manner was critical for the emperor and the Imperial family in their relationships with the Senate and the people. The emperor needed to display respect as a primus inter pares toward his senatorial peers, and a certain civility—

to call it “folksy” would perhaps push it too far—relative to the plebs. This study uses civilitas as an analytical concept that encompasses comes, comitas, levitas popularis, and joviality. I will argue that tears could express civilitas in the interaction between the elite and the non-elite.

A vir needed to give evidence of his status and manliness, his manly virtue, his virtus.⁴³ From as early as we can tell, virtus had connotations with military valor, physical prowess, and bravery. In civic life virtus meant enduring personal and political misfortune, like bereavement or exile, as became a man. A Roman needed to perform virtus in front of the Roman community so that it could redeem virtus with dignitas, gloria, and honos.⁴⁴ Virtus was closely related to fortitudo/fortis (manly bravery and strength) and firmitudo (firmness and strength of mind and character).⁴⁵ Virtus can be said to encompass these two virtues, which is why this study subsumes them under virtus. Virtus was also related to a range of other

“manly” virtues, such as gravitas (the virtue of possessing importance, seriousness, and gravity), maiestas (majesty, a kind of successor virtue to gravitas, but with stronger connotations to the dignity of office and power), auctoritas (authority), and dignitas (dignity and social standing).⁴⁶

captures the manner’s quality as a virtue. On leveling manners in the Hellenistic world, see Chaniotis 1997, 233–240; 2013, 79. Cf. Arnould 1990, chap. 6.

43 On virtus and aristocratic ethos, see for example Hellegouarc’h 1963 (esp. 242–251, 476–483);

Earl 1967; Eisenhut 1973; Harris 1979; 2006; Lind 1979; 1986; 1989; 1992; MacMullen 1984; Rosenstein 1990; 2006; Vidén 1993, 110–121; Galinsky 1996, chap. 3; Lintott 1999, 164–176; Roller 2001; McDonnell 2006a; Edwards 2007, 41–45, 90–98; Morgan 2007;

Hölkeskamp 2017.

44 On the need for virtus to be performed and made visible, see Edwards 1999; 2007, 144–160;

Barton 2001, 58–61; Wilcox 2005b, 271–272; 2006; McDonnell 2006a.

45 Hellegouarc’h 1963, 247–251, 290–294, 494; Lind 1992, 21–24; McDonnell 2006a, 60–61.

46 On gravitas, see Hellegouarc’h 1963, 279–290; Lind 1979, 34–38; Wagenvoort 1980 [1952], 39–58. On maiestas, see Drexler 1956; Gundel 1963; Hellegouarc’h 1963, 314–320; Bauman 1967; Wagenvoort 1980 [1952], 39–58; Lind 1986, 52–56. Lind 1979, 34–36; 1986, 52, argues that maiestas gradually substituted gravitas. On auctoritas, see Hellegouarc’h 1963, 295–

336; Lind 1979, 29–34. On dignitas, see Hellegouarc’h 1963, 388–420; Lind 1979, 22–29.

On these virtues, see also Morgan 2007 (who at length discusses popular morality in Roman culture).

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Virtus became more ethical and abstract during the Late Republic and Early Empire and came close to meaning “personal excellence.”⁴⁷ With the establishment of the Principate, the emperor took control over the customary career paths and limited the traditional elite’s opportunities to display traditional virtus in service of the res publica. In response, Roman aristocrats could turn inward and internalize virtue and express a virtue that was independent of political recognition. The establishment of autocracy can thus partly explain the popularity of Stoicism among the elite in Imperial Rome.⁴⁸ Losing external power, this elite turned inward, and facing death and other personal hardships in a Stoic manner became one avenue for virtus. In what amounts to a small paradox, however, Roman Stoics like Seneca still took for granted that deeds of virtus had audiences.⁴⁹ Thus, like traditional virtus, Stoic and ethical virtus stood in demand of acknowledgement, albeit not necessarily the same political recognition that was possible during the Republic. Stoicism thus redefined the traditional virtues.⁵⁰ The main relevance of virtus and related virtues, like gravitas and maiestas, in this study is that a member of the elite could express them by not weeping in public when in distress and instead persisting in service of the res publica.

Pietas, fides, and clementia were relational and emotional virtues that could be expressed and appealed to by tears. Pietas was the virtue of loyalty to authority, that is, the dutiful conduct, devotion, reverence, and affection toward the gods, the state, parents, kin, and benefactors.⁵¹ Fides meant something like reciprocal loyalty, devotion, and trustworthiness in relationships.⁵² Clementia was associated

47 McDonnell 2006a.

48 On Stoicism, politics, and the “Stoic opposition,” see MacMullen 1966, chap. 2; Brunt 1975;

Griffin 1984, 171–177; Shaw 1985; Rutherford 1989, 59–80; Edwards 1997; 1999, 255–256, 262; 2007, 90–98; Roller 2001, chap. 2. Stoicism is a recurrent theme in the studies of Rudich 1993; 1997, on dissidence in Neronic Rome.

49 Hijmans 1966; Rosenmeyer 1989, 47–48; Edwards 1999; 2002, 382–384, 392; 2007, 144–

160; Roller 2001, 78–97; Santoro L’Hoir 2006, 215. Cf. McDonnell 2006a, 385–389.

50 Roller 2001, chap. 2; Edwards 2009.

51 On pietas, see Hellegouarc’h 1963, 276–279; Earl 1967, 68–69, 76–77; Weinstock 1971, 248–

259; Wagenvoort 1980 [1924], 1–20; Lind 1992, 15–21; Vidén 1993, 130; Saller 1994, 105–

114, 130–131; Galinsky 1996, 82, 86–88; Roller 2001, 26–54; Morgan 2007. Pietas might emerge in literary sources as an obligation for men, but when we gain insight into the relations within a family, like we do in Cicero’s corpus, pietas is explicitly ascribed to Roman women as well, and that without any further comments, see for example Cic. Fam. 8.3; 155.1; 166;

248.6; Att. 228; Clu. 12, 194. See also Sen. Marc. 1.2–3; Helv. 2.4, 4.2, 16.1, 16.7, 18.8.

52 On fides, see Hellegouarc’h 1963, 23–35, 37–41, 275–276; Earl 1967, 33, 45, 76–77, 83; Lind 1989, 5–13; Hölkeskamp 2004a, chap. 4. (= 2000a); Morgan 2013. On the relationship between fides and pietas, see Lind 1989, 8–10; 1992, 16; Hölkeskamp 2004a, 108; Morgan 2007.

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with power and was the virtue of treating the subjected or an offender better than he deserved.⁵³

Summing up, Roman tears need to be situated in a political culture that was performative. The importance of form and manner is one reason not to get dragged into questions about emotional content and what a Roman “really” felt when he wept. Instead, what is relevant is how tears and crying expressed virtue and were related to status, manners, forms, and appearances in political communication in a way that persuaded, created consensuses, and affected outcomes. This theatricality of Roman political culture calls for a dramaturgical approach.

The Dramaturgical Metaphor

The Framework in Outline

This study’s main theoretical framework derives from Ervin Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959). Goffman studies interaction in modern Western everyday social life by likening it to the theater. For Goffman, social interaction takes place on stages before audiences as in the theater.

Accordingly, besides performers (also called actors and co-actors) there are observers, who constitute an audience. The distinction between actor and audience is fluid and relative, depending on perspective, time, and place. A performer in one situation can be the audience in another, and vice versa.

Goffman calls the pre-established pattern of action that unfolds during a performance a part or routine,⁵⁴ but this study prefers script because the term seems better suited to a study of political culture and because it is used in scholarship on the history of emotions.⁵⁵ A performer might follow the script or deviate from it.

From Goffman’s perspective, a deviation is seen as a threat to the performance’s

53 On clementia, see Weinstock 1971, 233–243; Wallace-Hadrill 1983, 158–162; Konstan 2001, 97–104; 2005b; Griffin 2003; Dowling 2006; Morgan 2007; Braund 2009; 2012, 100–103.

54 Goffman 1959, 16.

55 Ebersole 2000 uses “script” in his article on methodology for the study of tears in the history of religions. Kaster 2005 elucidates the emotional lives of Romans with “scripts,” while Chaniotis 2015 writes about “emotional scripts” in diplomacy. We can extend Goffman’s definition with the addition that a script represents the instructions for the proper enactment of a role in a given situation, that is, what is allowed, prohibited, and expected.

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coherence and is likely to carry adverse social consequences. I would underline that this is the area of friction between the performer’s intention and agency on the one hand, and the social structure, represented by the script, on the other. A change of the performance that does not adhere to the script could alter its significance and add meaning to it.⁵⁶

Social interaction is set in a physical context, a stage. The stage has a front area, a front stage, that is exposed to an audience and that includes furniture, backdrop, decor, physical layout, and stage props. The backstage, by contrast, is where the performers might step out of their roles and be “themselves” outside the audience’s view. The stage is typically a distinct physical space, but during a procession the stage moves, with streets and buildings forming its backdrop. Moreover, the same stage can be the location for different performances, and the same performance can be staged in various settings. Thus, performances and stages can allude to each other.⁵⁷

Within the concept of the front, with the distinction that it is a personal front, Goffman refers to the expressive equipment associated with the performer. The personal front is divided in appearance and manner.⁵⁸ Appearance communicates the social status of the performer and includes the props and paraphernalia, such as dress, tools, and the insignia of office, but also sex, age, and other personal characteristics. Manner, including demeanor, refers to stimuli that provide information about the role the performer is about to play.

Goffman briefly outlines directive and dramatic dominance, two concepts related to power and status.⁵⁹ Directive dominance concerns who has the power to stage and direct the play. Dramatic dominance is about who enjoys the audience’s attention and plays the lead role. The possession of dramatic dominance might be a socially privileged position as in grand political ceremonies and the like, but it might also be wielded by performers of low or ambiguous status.

Fundamental for Goffman’s approach is that performers try to control the impression others make of them. This “appearance management” can be achieved by adjusting appearance, manner, setting, and script. Correspondingly, a performer tries to get correct information about other performers to get his own performance right. Functional interaction demands that actors agree about the

56 Cf. Althoff 2003, 188–199, as cited by Hagen 2017, 45–46.

57 On the concepts of front stage and backstage, see Goffman 1959, 22–30, 106–130, who uses the word “region” rather than “stage.”

58 Goffman 1959, 23–30.

59 Goffman 1959, 97–104.

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definition of the situation, that is, which roles, performances, and scripts should be staged. Once established, Goffman calls such a temporary agreement a working consensus.⁶⁰ Misunderstandings and failures to comply with the script typically compromise interaction and often mean loss of face. Furthermore, Goffman argues that performers have an inclination to offer idealized impressions of themselves and that a performance tends to express values accredited in society by giving a condensed and value-loaded version of reality.⁶¹ An investigation into tearful performances should consequently inform us about Roman cultural values.

Emotional Sociology

The script for crying and tears is likely to depend on status, identity, and membership in social groups.⁶² This can be understood with Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, which is a system of dispositions that the individual acquires from his position in different fields of society.⁶³ A habitus provides the individual with outlooks, mentalities, practices, gestures, values, feelings, and so on. A habitus expresses identity and status and is the kit that constitutes an identity.

Gender and socio-economic and cultural status often demarcate different habitus from each other.

A complementary approach to that of habitus of looking at how emotional displays relate to status and social groups is Barbara Rosenwein’s concept emotional communities. Emotional communities are “systems of feeling,” which consist of the evaluations social groups make about others’ emotions, and “the modes of emotional expression they expect, tolerate, and deplore.”⁶⁴ As an analytical concept, emotional communities promise to be useful. It invites us to make distinctions in the historical context and concentrate on what was “going on” emotionally in Roman political culture. Emotional communities are arguably a particularly good fit for Roman culture, seeing how stratified it was in different groups that were ascribed varying degrees of emotionality and proneness to tears.

In particular episodes, differing emotional responses can define groups and opinions and signal conflict and consensus. Both habitus and emotional

60 Goffman 1959, 9–10.

61 Goffman 1959, 34–51.

62 Cf. Ebersole 2000, 224–225.

63 As outlined by Bourdieu 1984; 1990; 1997; 2001.

64 Rosenwein 2001; 2002; 2006; 2010a; 2010b; 2016. The quotation is from Rosenwein 2002, 842 (see also 2010a, 832; 2016, 3–10). Emotional communities have the social group as its chief object of study, habitus the individual.

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communities induce us to focus on the fact that groups held different attitudes toward emotions and their display and that group membership could be expressed and ascribed by these differences. That individuals and groups adjust their emotional behavior and attitudes relative to each other and social phenomena helps explain why norms and attitudes toward emotions and their expressions change over time as social groups change, emerge, or disappear.⁶⁵

The Dramaturgical Metaphor and Rome

Some words need to be said about the methodological implications of the dramaturgical metaphor for this study. The empirical chapters correspond to defined situations, or stages, where tears formed part of scripted behaviors:

mourning, legal cases, and when authority and power were exercised or at stake in military or political settings. Most important is the ambition to lay bare the scripts relevant for tears and their outcomes when Romans wept in the rituals and ceremonies (understood in a wide sense) in Roman culture. Because this study is concerned with power and status, we need to inquire into who enjoyed directive and dramatic dominance in different performances. The concepts of front stage and backstage offer a way to avoid the categorization of phenomena as public or private, as well as the problematic modern connotations of these notions.⁶⁶ The dramaturgical approach encourages the study to avoid speculating about which emotions were “real” or “true.” Instead, the Roman audience and the author of the text determine what is true or false, honest or mendacious.⁶⁷ Just because tears might be ritualized or scripted—that is socially expected—does not mean that they are less “true,” or less meaningful, for the study of a political culture.⁶⁸ On the contrary, the scripted nature of Roman political culture contributes to defining it. Accordingly, this study investigates the attitudes held by groups toward weeping and is not concerned with inquiring about what Romans “really” felt.⁶⁹ Of course, I consider it highly relevant to establish which emotions Romans related to tears in various contexts and whether audiences

65 Rosenwein 2016, 318–321.

66 For discussions on public and private in Rome in relation to the modern concepts, see Riggsby 1997; 1999b; Treggiari 1998; Winterling 2005; 2009, chap. 4; Russell 2016a, chap. 1–2.

67 Cf. Goffman 1959, 70–76.

68 Cf. Ebersole 2000, 212–215; Hagen 2017, 59–61.

69 This means that the study is concerned with emotionology (the logic, conventions, and norms governing emotional displays) rather than emotional content and what was felt, according to the terminology of Stearns & Stearns 1985.

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assessed tears as true or false in a given situation, since this influenced their reception and effect.

Arguably, Goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor is an even better fit for the Roman political culture than for modern social life. “The elaborate ceremonies that occurred in the arenas and streets of the city [of Rome] were, in essence, theatrical performances that were often as carefully choreographed as any drama of the stage,” as Gary Aldrete has noted.⁷⁰ The likeness of (political) life to the theater was not lost on the ancients either. The empirical chapters will make clear that ancient authors, not least historians, used metaphors, structures, terminology, and content from the theater. According to Suetonius, both Augustus and Nero in their last words likened themselves with actors.⁷¹ Cassius Dio has Maecenas saying to Augustus that he would live as though in a theater with the whole world as spectators.⁷² Marcus Aurelius could write that the royal courts of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Philip, Alexander, and Croesus were all the same, only that different actors played the parts.⁷³ Cicero compared the contio with the stage and the Forum with a theater.⁷⁴ When Cicero wished that his friend L. Lucceius would write a history of his consulship, he argued that a focus on the Catilinarian conspiracy would make it better and seem like a play.⁷⁵ Cicero could cast Marc Antony as a beggar-turned-rich and a miles gloriosus in his Orationes Philippicae,⁷⁶ while the Pro Caelio plays on the comedy,⁷⁷ a genre that also permeates the Pro Roscio Amerino.⁷⁸ Francesca Santoro L’Hoir has dedicated a monograph to arguing that tragedy influenced Tacitus’ Annales and that Tacitus consciously uses dramaturgical vocabulary, themes, and structures to guide his readers.⁷⁹ Staying with Tacitus, Anthony J. Woodman has argued that the historian cast the

70 Aldrete 1999, 169–171 (see also 158–159). Similarly, Veyne 1990, 383–386, vividly likens the city of Rome to a stage-like Imperial court, while Hölkeskamp 2011; 2013, relates Late Republican political culture to the theater.

71 Suet. Aug. 99; Ner. 49.

72 Cass. Dio 52.34.2–3; Millar 1964, 102–118.

73 M. Aur. Med. 10.27; Rutherford 1989, 164–167, 175–176; Woodman 1993, 119–120.

74 Cic. Amic. 97; De or. 2.238; Brut. 6.

75 Cic. Fam. 22.2, 22.6; Woodman 1993, 105.

76 Laidlaw 1960, 63; Sussman 1994.

77 Geffcken 1973 is the classic study on comedy in the Pro Caelio, but see also Riggsby 1999a, 97–

105; Leigh 2004a. Hall 2014 uses the theater as a heuristic tool in his study of Cicero’s forensic activity and with “judicial theater” understands all nonverbal devices (props and gestures) that Cicero employed in forensic settings.

78 Vasaly 1985.

79 Santoro L’Hoir 2006.

Weeping for the res publica Tears in Roman political culture Vekselius, Johan

Weeping for the res publica

Tears in Roman political culture

Weeping for the res publica

Weeping for the res publica

Tears in Roman political culture

Weeping for the res publica

Tears in Roman political culture

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1.

Approaching Roman Tears

Introduction

Roman Political Culture

The Dramaturgical Metaphor